Transport XXIV/2 from Westerbork, Camp, The Netherlands to Theresienstadt, Ghetto, Czechoslovakia on 18/01/1944

On Tuesday, January 18, the 78th transport from the Netherlands departed. It was the third to the Theresienstadt ghetto and carried 870 Jews aboard. Philip Mechanicus, a journalist who had been interned in Westerbork, wrote in his diary on January 13: “The word Theresienstadt reverberates around the camp. The Commandant is preparing for Theresienstadt. A whole host of decisions are being taken with regard to pending applications. […] The Hague and Fräulein Slottke are arranging all these transports." The day before departure, Wilhelm Zöpf, head of the Jewish Affairs Department (IVb4) at the BdS in The Hague, advised Gestapo headquarters in Prague that the transport would be leaving Westerbork at 10:42 a.m. the next day, carrying approximately 1,000 Jews. Although Zöpf provided no further details, a week later he sent an updated report to the commander of Theresienstadt, Obersturmführer Anton Burger, and attached a copy of the transport manifest and an instruction concerning any Jews with Honduran or Paraguayan passports. Such papers should be treated as worthless, Zöpf asserted, because they were nothing but a gesture (Gefälligkeitspässe) toward the Jews on the part of these countries. The deportation lists pertaining to Theresienstadt had more categories and their inclusion was more flexible than those from the transports to Bergen-Belsen. Each category was discussed with Eichmann,who decided whether or not to include it in the transport. Several categories were broadened and new ones were added. For example, an expanded version of the Stammliste (veterans of Westerbork) now included family members for the first time. This was the largest group in the transport (385 deportees) and almost always the largest contingent in transports to Thersienstadt. The list of the Stammliste was produced by Albert Konrad Gemmeker, commander of the camp, in February 1943. It was called the “one thousand list” in Westerbork jargon. It numbered 1,807 deportees (with their families), all of whom were German Jews and among the most veteran internees in the camp. Dutch Jews were appended to the list only afterwards; Gemmeker inserted them as a gesture and as a way to give them a sense of security. He chose this tactic in order to prevent discord in his camp which was supposed to serve as a model for others....